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Home help service

Information

The Home Help Service supports the assessed needs of vulnerable people in
the community who through illness or disability are in need of help with day to
day tasks.

Home help services are provided in order to assist people to remain in their
own home and to avoid going in to long-term care. In practice, the Health
Service Executive (HSE) either provides the home help service directly or make
arrangements with voluntary organisations to provide them.

The service is generally free to medical card holders and is always
free to people who have contracted Hepatitis
C directly or indirectly from the use of Human Immunoglobulin-Anti-D or
from the receipt within Ireland of another blood product or a blood transfusion
and who have a Health Amendment Act Card. Other people may be asked to make a
contribution to the cost of the service.

The HSE is not limited in the categories of people they can assist at home.
However, the priorities are normally to provide a service to people with
Hepatitis C who have Health Amendment Act Cards, older people, families with
small children where the mother is dead or seriously ill and people
with disabilities.

If you get a home help, you may have to make a contribution towards the
cost, even if you hold a medical card. In some cases, you may have to pay all
the costs involved. If you are in a position to pay the costs involved, you can
ask the Health Service Executive (HSE) for an arrangement whereby the HSE has
all the responsibilities of the employer while you pay the costs.

There are not enough people available to provide home help services to
people who are assessed as being in need of the service. In some areas, you may
be asked to identify a person who may be able to provide the service. If that
person is considered suitable by the HSE, then he/she may be offered the
job.

Some Local Health Offices also provide a limited home help respite
care service for carers.

Rules

The home help is expected to provide a set number of hours assistance each
day or each week. The precise arrangements can usually be agreed between you
and the HSE. The focus of the Home Help service is on essential personal care,
such as washing, taking a shower, assistance with changing position, oral
hygiene, or help at mealtime, and on essential domestic duties (like lighting a
fire or bringing in fuel if there is no alternative heating source, or basic
essential cleaning of the person’s personal space). Home helps are not
expected to provide nursing or medical care.

The particular supports provided to each person will depend on the needs
that are identified during the assessment which is undertaken by a HSE health
professional, generally a public health nurse.

Each application for home help services is considered on its own merits. The
Local Health Office may take a number of factors into account, including
income, other family support available, remoteness from services and
availability of suitable people to provide the service.

If you are given a service, you may be asked to contribute to the costs
involved, even if you hold a medical card.

How to apply

Further information

Home help service and the law

Empowered by Section
61 of the Health Act 1970, the Health Service Executive (HSE) may make
arrangements to assist in the maintenance at home of people who are sick or
infirm, or their dependants. This assistance normally takes the form of the
Home Help service. The Act (Section 61(1) of the Health Act 1970) allows for
the service to be provided free of charge, or a charge may be levied.

The HSE is not obliged to make this service available to anyone except those
who have contracted Hepatitis C directly or indirectly from the use of Human
Immunoglobulin-Anti-D or from the receipt within Ireland of another blood
product or a blood transfusion and who have a Health Amendment Act Card.
Hepatitis C sufferers therefore are the only people with a statutory
entitlement to the Home Help service and this entitlement is set down in the Health
(Amendment) Act 1996 as amended.

In practice, where the HSE provides a Home Help service, the service is
mainly confined to older people and to families where a parent is ill or unable
to cope.

In some cases, the HSE employs the home help directly. In other cases the
HSE finances a service which is organised by a voluntary organisation.
Sometimes people are asked to contribute towards the cost.

Language

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Contact Us

If you have a question relating to this topic you can contact the Citizens Information Phone Service on 0761 07 4000 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 8pm) or you can visit your local Citizens Information Centre.